[Commlist] CFP – Special Issue on Gendered Bodies and Digital Selfhood in Short-form Videos

Call for Papers: Journal of Gender Studies

Special Issue:  "Gendered Bodies and Digital Selfhood in Short-form 
Videos: Research from the Global South"

Special Issue Editors: Swikrita Dowerah and Debarshi Prasad Nath

The rise of digital platforms has significantly shaped the ways in which 
gender is negotiated in the digital age. Platforms like Instagram, 
Snapchat, TikTok have functioned as discursive spaces for 
self-presentation and critiquing of age-old gender stereotypes (Farcia, 
Scarcellib, 2023). Short-form videos, with their highly viral and 
shareable format, have emerged as an important tool in this context 
(Zhang, 2020). These videos enable a new generation of active users to 
create content that shapes and influences both social and commercial 
trends and informs quotidian practices that frame our perception of 
gender and embodiment. Discourses on the digital self centre around how 
bodies perform and how they can deviate from the socially accepted 
aspects of gender performativity. Social media platforms facilitate a 
redefinition of how gendered bodies are expressed, performed, and consumed.

This dynamic introduces a tension between authenticity and performance 
in online self-representation. Crystal Abidin (2016) notes how 
influencer cultures often blur the line between the intimate and the 
performative, where “calibrated amateurism” becomes central to appearing 
authentic in online spaces. The rise of digital reels and short-form 
videos exposes the contradictions between self-expression and 
commodification within the capitalist frameworks in which social media 
operate. The critical question is on how and what bodies perform and how 
they are regulated (Warfield, Abidin, & Cambre, 2020). While platforms 
like Instagram and TikTok promise greater agency for users, they are 
also governed by algorithmic architectures that prioritize 
engagement-driven content (Foster & Baker, 2024; Dijck & Poell, 2013). 
This creates a paradox in which self-representation is often 
commodified, with users performing gendered identities in ways that 
cater to audience expectations and platform metrics.

In their study on Gen Z’s use of Tiktok, Stahl & Literat (2022) found 
that content created for self-definition is marked by internal 
contradictions. They are powerful and self-assured, yet vulnerable and 
damaged. Bhandari and Bimo (2022) writes about how social media 
platforms are mobilised by digital influencers to share experiences from 
one’s personal lives, with the videos contributing to the “narrative 
character” of those experiences. In regions such as South and Southeast 
Asia, Africa, and across East and West Asia, the platformisation of the 
body intersects with socio-cultural markers such as class, caste, 
colour, religion, and nationality, adding layers of complexity to gender 
performance in short-form videos (De, 2023;  Matamoros-Fernández, 
2017; Parks & Mukherjee, 2017). This intersectionality shapes how 
digital embodiment is negotiated and understood in diverse cultural 
contexts.

Short-form reels also facilitate gendered forms of protests and 
challenge traditional notions of performing gender, as seen in 
“female-to-male” presentations on TikTok shorts (Wang, 2024), or through 
online mobilisation using visual elements like images and photos in 
YouTube shorts, as observed within the LGBT+ and feminist community 
(Zottola, 2024). Although social media offers users the space to 
challenge mainstream gender norms and assert diverse gender identities, 
there is an increasing pressure to balance the need for presenting the 
self while remaining relevant and in trend. Bhatia and Arora, et al, 
(2021) propose the framework of “quotidian playful resilience” (QPR) to 
identify and theorize the various techniques and strategies girls use in 
their engagements with digital technologies to circumvent, negotiate 
with, and/or inhabit the sociocultural norms dominant in their 
societies.  In such a competitive and performative digital space, the 
notion of a “true self” is continually contested.  The market dynamics 
involved in digital reels also raise the question of whether reels lead 
to ‘being bodies’ or ‘becoming bodies’.Coleman (2008) suggests that even 
the process of “becoming bodies” is significant in feminist research, as 
bodies are not separable from images but are “known, understood and 
experienced through images” (p.1).

However, beyond these genuine concerns, short-form videos can also offer 
moments of empowerment, especially for those able to see beyond the 
market’s empowerment gimmicks and harness the medium meaningfully. 
Papacharissi’s (2011) concept of the “networked self” highlights how 
social media constitute a site of identity management and 
self-presentation. At the same time, platforms are also sites of 
discipline, surveillance, and trolling. Patriarchal narratives 
frequently infiltrate these spaces, often widening rather than shrinking 
the traditional gender gap. Dickel and Evolvi (2023) explore forms of 
networked misogyny and its intensification via the manosphere. Georgia 
A. Lucas (2024) discusses how influencers like Andrew Tate propagate 
toxic masculinity on platforms such as TikTok, influencing young boys. 
In various studies, TikTok emerges as a platform that can reinforce 
hegemonic masculinity, shaping the gender identities of impressionable 
young men (Tanner & Gillardin, 2025).

These dynamics reveal the paradoxical nature of short-form videos such 
as digital reels as both tools of empowerment and instruments of 
containment. Understanding this duality is key to feminist digital 
scholarship, especially in the Global South. This special issue invites 
submissions that explore the intersections of gender, 
self-representation, digital reels, and platform culture, with an 
emphasis on how gender is both expressed and commodified in online 
spaces. We welcome analyses of how these expressions either reinforce or 
resist hegemonic and violent structures, and their implications for 
feminist scholarship in terms of agency and affect. We encourage 
interdisciplinary perspectives from gender studies, media studies, 
sociology, cultural studies, and related fields, particularly those 
rooted in the Global South, that critically examine how gender is 
represented, commodified, and contested in the age of digital reels.

Possible areas of exploration include (but are not limited to):

  *

    Gender performativity in digital reels

  *

    The commodification of gender and sexuality

  *

    Bodies and the Nation

  *

    Drag, body positivity, and gender activism on digital platforms

  *

    The impact of algorithms in promoting gendered trends

  *

    Authenticity vs. performativity

  *

    Reels and gendered trends around fashion, body image, and social
    behaviour

  *

    Self-representation and self-presentation

  *

    The intersection of race, class, and gender in the commodification
    of identity on social media platforms

  *

    The impact of social media reels on gendered visibility and activism

  *

    Body shaming and flak in short-form videos

  *

    Hate-mongering and Trolls

  *

    Being and Becoming Bodies

  *

    Platform governance, algorithms, and visibility politics in gender
    performance

  *

    Feminist politics and the role of digital media in challenging or
    reinforcing stereotypes

*Submission:*
Interested contributors are invited to submit a 300-word abstract along 
with the author's biographical note (50-100 words) to 
*(sfvspecialissue /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(sfvspecialissue /at/ gmail.com)>* by 
*September 15, 2025*.

*Notification of acceptance:* Decision about acceptance will be sent by 
the end of October 2025. Only authors of accepted abstracts will be 
invited to submit full papers through the journal’s official submission 
platform.

*Note: * No publication fees will be charged for accepted papers in this 
special issue

*Link to journal webpage: *https://encr.pw/Xf6Wo <https://encr.pw/Xf6Wo>

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